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Basic SAS Procedures

Greg Jenkins

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Overview

SAS procedures are functions that generallytake data in either from a data set, or

specified options, and then output someinformation.

Thats pretty vague, but we will look atsome basic SAS procedures for examples.

Coding and options are similar for mostprocedures.

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Syntax Common to Most Procedures

Most procedures have the following generalsyntax:

proc something ;

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Syntax Common to Most Procedures

The data= statement specifies the data setthe procedure will use, if the procedurerequires an input data set(some dont). If

the data= statement is left out the last dataset created is used.

Where clause allows subsetting of data.

by statement allows the processing of theprocedure separately for each level of theby variable, you need to sort the inputdata set by the by variable.

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Syntax Common to Most Procedures

The label and format statements workexactly the same as in the data step. Theformats and labels are removed from the

data set after the procedure is ended. Some procedures are interactive and start

processing when the proc statement issubmitted. Others require a run;

statement at the end of the procedure codeto start processing, or start processing byreaching the beginning of another SASstatement.

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Syntax Common to Most Procedures

Most procedures will end on their own after

all the procedure code is submitted, but for

interactive procedures, such as: proc

gplot, gchart, sql, reg, and some others; a

quit; statement must be used to end the

procedure unless code related to another

procedure, data step, SAS option, etc. isreached.

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Types of Procedures

There are lots of them, but well just discuss

a few groups, and few procedures within

those groups.

First, well look at base SAS procedures.

The first procedures well talk about are

report writing related: print, printto,tabulate, and report.

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Proc Print

Used to output the contents of a SAS dataset.

Basic syntax:

proc print ;

run;

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Proc Print

label statement tells SAS whether youwant the labels or variable names ofvariables used as column headers.

The var statement lets you list thevariables in the data set you want printed.

By default observations(rows) in the datasetare identified by the row number, the id

statement allows you change this to a set ofvariables(dont include these variables inthe var statement unless you want themprinted out twice ).

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Other Report Writing Procedures

proc printto allows output, and log files to

be redirected to a specified text file.

Proc report & tabulate are fancier

versions of proc print, they can also do

some minor calculations.

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Basic Statistics Procedures

The next group of basic procedures well

talk about are procedures that do basic

statistics, like simple frequency

(contingency) tables, univariate statistics,

etc.

These procedures are: proc univariate,means, freq, rank, and corr.

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Proc Univariate

Calculates basic statistics for one variable,

mean, median, etc., also does tests.

proc univariate ;

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Proc Univariate

If no variables are specified in the var optionthe procedure will run on all the variables in thedata set specified.

This procedure outputs a wide variety ofstatistics and can also create output datasetscontaining these statistics.

Proc univariate will conduct t-tests, and tests for

non-normality(if the normal option is used).

It will also produce histograms, probabilityplots,

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Proc Means

Basically a scaled down version of proc

univariate, does not conduct tests, fewer

statistics, etc.

Its advantage over proc univariate is that it

processes quicker, and is easier to work

with if the aim is to get an output data setthat contains statistics of more than one

variable. proc univariate does not do this.

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Proc Freq

Basically creates frequency, and

contingency tables.

proc freq ;

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Proc Freq

In the table statement if you want to create a

contingency table of one or more variables

join the variables by an asterisk(*).

proc freq;

table gender*smoke;

run;

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Proc Freq

Proc freq will do testing, approximate, and

exact.

Outputs measures of association,

agreement, and odds ratios.

Also has several output data sets.

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Other Basic Statistics Procedures

Proc rank, will output a data set of ranks

based on variables from an input dataset and

various options.

Proc corr, outputs correlation type

information, for comparisons of two

continuous variables, also does non-parametric comparisons.

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Utility Procedures

These procedures are utilities, they are for

the most part work with data sets, they: sort,

edit, copy, etc. They do not generally

produce output.

Some of the procedures we have already

seen are: proc format, proc import(using theimport wizard), proc sql(well talk about

later), and proc contents.

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Brief Overview: Utility Procedures

Proc copy copies SAS datasets, catalogs.

Proc datasets works on datasets in a

library.

Proc compare compares two datasets.

Proc append concatenates data sets.

Proc transpose transposes data(well talk

about this later)

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Categories of Other Procedures

SAS/STAT statistical procedures, learnabout these for the most part in a statistics

classes. SAS/ACCESS procedures for importing

data from other sources.

SAS/OR procedures related to operationsresearch(proc netwflow for networkproblems, etc.)

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Categories of Other Procedures

SAS/ETS statistical procedures, time

series tools

SAS/FSP data entry tools

SAS/GIS tools for GIS(Geographic

Information Systems) data

SAS/GRAPH graphics

SAS/IML Interactive matrix language

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Categories of Other Procedures

SAS/EIS data warehousing tools

SAS/QC quality control procedures, like

proc capability(nice procedure for normal-

probability plots, etc.)

And many, many more

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Output from Procedures

Output for SAS procedures are generallysent to the output window(interactive SAS)or .lst file(Line Mode SAS), however someprocedures have no output or send the

output to the log window, or .log file, A relatively new improvement to SAS is

ODS(Output Delivery System), improvesthe way output is delivered from

procedures. ODS still doesnt deliver great output but

it can be useful, as well, it can create .pdf,.html, .rtf, and many other file types.

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GUIs for Procedures

As mentioned earlier there are somegraphical user interfaces for procedures, onethat is very useful is the SAS/SQL GUI.

The SQL GUI can be found be selectingtools then Query.

Another GUI is for proc import, this is theimport data wizard that youve seen.

SAS/ASSIST is a GUI for some otherprocedures.

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Help on the Help!

Its a long running joke(although not a good

one!) that you need a SAS manual to read a

SAS manual.

Theres a good description of SASs syntax

convention in the SAS OnlineDoc Version 8,

which I didnt copy because of copyrightreasons!